Community College vs. four-year

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I went to a C.C. for one year, transferred to Rutgers, a State School. State schools are your best bet. My fiance just finished teaching at a local C.C. I can tell you that the workload and quality is not the same. But like many other things, it comes down to the students and whether they truly want to learn. If you put in your own time and read, you'll do just fine. It comes down to individual effort.

Many professors that are brilliant and teaching at 4 year schools have no people skills at all. They are lousy teachers. Brilliant at analyzing data and researching, but teaching is an art requires more. My debt from school is minimal. I have friends that have $40k-$90k in undergraduate school loans and just received a 4 year degree. Unless it has a name like Harvard or Princeton, you're wasting your money IMO.
 
In our area one of the many purposes the community colleges are serving is as a flexible substitute for traditional high school for otherwise home schooled students. It makes an excellent bridge between home schooling and traditional four year colleges. The difference in a student's freedom and choice between public high school and a community college is huge. Come and go as you please, sign up for the courses and teachers you choose .... a real eye opener. A large fraction of the students who take the traditional high school to four year college route flame out in their first year of college. One reason is that they don't have the experience of freedom of choice and thus don't know how to balance freedom with personal discipline.
 
Getting a good education is probably 70% the effort you put in to it vs 30% teacher. I've had so many highly regarded professors that were so hard to understand (heavy accents) and were just average at "teaching" a lesson.

Once you really mature, and know what you want to do, choosing a good grad school is more important. You have to figure that the first 2 years are the same in most schools. psyc 101, english 101 etc. Your liberal arts courses are generally similar.
 
I'm in college right now and I wish I would've taken 2 years of CC first, because it was all just basic courses and I ended up changing my major anyways. It's much cheaper than going to an actual university unless you're getting lots of scholarships and grants.
 
Im going to a CC first then Getting an assoicate of science then Im going to transfer to a state universisty. Im gonna be apling for the engineering program. With this school any money in scholarships that you dont use they send back to you as a check. Im actually getting paid to go to school. Cant beat that !
 
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Im going to a CC first then Getting an assoicate of science then Im going to transfer to a state universisty.



Good plan. We are very fortunate in Pa. to have probably the best branch campus system (PSU) in the nation. You can go for 2 years and can almost be guaranteed to get to PSU in your 3rd year. Some branches offer 4 year degrees. One of the very rare good things about Pa.
 
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